if you’ve spent any time on social media recently, you’ve probably heard the terms “male gaze” and “female gaze.” to set the scene for our non-chronically online readers, the terms started with people showing their style evolution. male gaze: basic, typically revealing, middle schooler who just got permission to wear crop tops sort of style; female gaze: adopting new, slightly more alternative styles as the trends changed. maybe they even dyed their hair darker!
male gaze and female gaze were then used to describe people (usually celebrities). Timothee Chalamet is female gaze. Flynn Ryder is female gaze. then, and this is where it gets interesting, people started making videos of themselves doing different facial expressions with the caption male vs female gaze. of course i have an example for you. i apologize in advance, but if i had to watch it, so do you.
it’s completely nonsensical, and the only reason she gets away without being relentlessly bullied is because she’s hot (let’s just be real).
okay, but what actually is the male gaze and the female gaze. because they do exist outside of the realm of online teenagers who have too much time on their hands.
the term male gaze was first used in 1973, by feminist filmmaker Laura Mulvey. it was the concept of men historically having control over the film industry — being the directors, starring as protagonists, and being the target audience of the films — so as a result, female characters are always catered to the male fantasy. in her feminist theory, Mulvey said that the male gaze teaches girls they need to look desirable to get attention from boys, and teaches boys that it’s acceptable to view women as sex objects.
in movies, we see this when a female character is surrounded by men, or when a shot lingers a little too long on a woman’s body, or when a female character appears on screen, but without any actual speaking lines. the most abhorrent display of male gaze that i have ever laid eyes on was in the original charlie’s angels. i decided to watch it because i love a good female slayage movie. however, i had to shut it off within the first 3 minutes because i was nauseated. scantily clad young women flocking around an old man is NOT slay.
the concept of the male gaze was expounded on in the iconic Margeret Atwood quote:
“Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it's all a male fantasy: that you're strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.”
she asserts that the male gaze is something women internalize, and that it is inescapable. the male gaze is not an aesthetic decision, it is a psychological condition, and a way that men exert power over women.
the female gaze then, is a response to the male gaze. it is when women are depicted as people with agency and a fully developed character. it is when women have authentic feelings and experiences instead of being portrayed as a piece of meat.
so in conclusion… you can wear different clothes and dye your hair but you will never escape the male gaze because it is inescapable. like margeret said, even pretending you aren’t catering to men is in itself a male fantasy. i don’t know how the meaning became warped to the point of what we saw in that video, but that’s just how the internet works, to be honest. and it might seem like a harmless trend, but changing the meaning of male gaze to something you can cast off by wearing the right clothes or acting a certain way completely contradicts feminist theory. now you can all comment “lobotomy goals” when you see someone misuse the terms male and female gaze.